The Great Laminate Debate!

Last week, I share the progress we have been making in Elliott's new bedroom. I had just completed painting the cement floors in both his room, and the family room. I was digging the rich, charcoal-brown colour that we chose but there was a hitch.

Dude. Concrete is hard. And cold.

So we decided to go ahead and buy the laminate flooring we planned on using down the line in the basement. Simply put, I want to enjoy this space. My family needs this space. We are so cramped in our little ranch. And we knew that if our family room and Elliott's room felt cold and uncomfortable come the middle of winter, there would be no way we would ever enjoy being down there.

Here is what we chose:

And we are so, so happy with the decision. It does mean that we will have to save up a bit longer to finish the laundry room and bath down there, but in my eyes, it was the right decision. I only wish I hadn't spent so stinkin' much time cleaning those hard floors up and painting them!

Additionally, we've narrowed the lighting fixture for Elliott's room down to these two, both from Barn Light Electric.

I'm taking votes!

Xo Meg

Elliott's Room Progress

I hope all my Canadian readers enjoyed their long Canada Day Weekend!  I did what we always do on long weekends - mixed family fun with crazy amounts of hard DIY work.  We made loads of progress though, and I'm so excited to show you the latest shots from Elliott's room.  

I took all the pictures for this post with my iphone.  I'm sorry they're not better quality but I promise to have excellent photos for the reveal post.  First, Jay installed the doors and trim in the room.  Baseboards, casings, window trim and jams are all in.  Here we are:

The window has an apron sill and backband around the trim.

  Then I got to work scrubbing the floors.  I don't think we'll ever learn the lesson to cover floors up if you don't want a ridiculous clean up in the end.  The concrete floors were covered with dust and debris, but also globs of mud from the drywall process.  I scrubbed and scraped, swept and vacuumed, scrubbed again... you get the point.  I'm so sore today, but this was the outcome of all that clean up.

   Originally, we planned to install laminate as the flooring in here.  However, we decided against it for the time being.  This is for two reasons.  First, the laminate flooring at my work has cupped and pulled up badly in the areas where there is moisture and this is the basement level of our home.  I'm worried about that happening here too.  Second, we are out of budget for the flooring we want to put down.  We're eventually going to go with hardwood with a Delta subfloor.  But that will take us some time to save up for and we need to be able to use this space, like, yesterday.  

Enter plan B:

 I painted the floors with concrete paint - which went on suprisingly easily.  I had it tinted to Benjamin Moore's Willow, a grey brown colour.  I also painted the family room floor and will show you that room's progress later in the week.  

BM Willow CC-542

Next Steps for this space include:

1. Choosing a flush mount light fixture that a) is affordable; and b) doesn't look like a boob. 
2. Installing outlet covers.
3. Caulking, filling, and painting the trim and doors.  

We're in the home stretch, baby.

xo Meg

Basement Reno

 

Oh, I hope you have better plans than me this weekend.  

I'll be down here shop-vac-ing the dust and priming the walls.  

Living the dream.  

I'm looking forward to showing you some of the progress we've made down here next week.  What are you getting up to this weekend?  

xo Meg

Elliott's New Room

I've been pulling together some inspiration for Elliott's bedroom in the new house (which we have yet to find, but that's a post for another day).

If you recall, this is Elliott's room now:

He's definitely outgrown the bed.  There's no way he can fit into a twin bed anymore.  We have a lovely, simple dark wood headboard to use in his new room.  But the bedding will be changing, obviously.  I'm on the lookout for great rustic bedding.  

The room will be heading in a slightly different direction.  For one, we don't have much barn board leftover, so there won't be a barnboard wall.  But we will probably keep his desk and just upgrade the chair.  

The turkish rug will also be staying. 

Elliott loves the red colour in the rug.  I really struggle with decorating using red.  It's just not a colour that speaks to me.  But apparently it is loud and clear for him.  He's gone so far as to ask for red on the walls.  I don't think I can go that far, but maybe a red desk chair and a few other accessories.

Here's some inspiration:

(only using reds and grey instead of blues - love this room by Abby)

I actually think I could just shop for the room entirely on the West Elm site.  I and thinking about these two blankets:

We will also go with a darker, moodier wall colour... I think.  I'm working on an inspiration board.  I'm also looking for a red desk chair so let me know if you see something great!

xo Meg

Style at Home Feature!

Happy Monday Everyone!

  I'm so excited today to share that I've been featured at styleathome.com!  I've mentioned that the Canadian magazine has long been a favourite of mine. I was thrilled when they asked me about how I was incorporating their new fall trends into my own decor.  They included me in a roundup of Blogger's Fave Design Trends.

  I shared these new photos of Elliott's room.  I have a friend who's an amazing photographer.  He used his killer camera and skills to show off the wooden panelling on the headboard wall.  If you'd like to check it out, you can go here.

In addition to me, there are several other amazing bloggers who were featured.  I am honoured to be in their company for this article.  Here are a couple I especially liked:

Featured Blogger:  Carissa from The Fabulous Design File

Featured Blogger:  Amy from aDESIGNdock

   In other news around here, this little blog is getting a facelift!  I am diligently working behind the scenes to improve the look and function of my little piece of cyberspace.  I should be ready to go live by the end of the week.

   Most of you probably don't know that I am a multimedia and web designer in real life.  I guess I kinda wear a lot of hats... I have enjoyed my start in the blog world so much and constantly find inspiration in your work and posts.  I think it's time for me to take my little blog to the next level.  I am also looking forward to featuring some more of the renovation work that Jason does and meshing these two worlds.

xo Meg

The Reveal: Elliott's Room

   This room has been such a labour of love... and a long time coming.  Jay and I worked so hard pulling it together and we are so happy with how it turned out.  More importantly, Elliott is thrilled.  It's the quirky, mature space he wanted.  The room is tiny and that couldn't be helped.   At least now he has a special room designed just for him.

 Welcome to Elliott's Room!  The rug is from Turkey.  My Mom brought it home for us when I was pregnant with Elliott.  

Jay made the captain's bed, which has two huge drawers that house Elliott's clothes.  The barnboard I scrubbed was installed on the headboard wall.

Jay also made the desk out of the rough pine salvaged barnboards.  The artwork includes framed prints from an Anthropology Calendar from 2008, a real snakeskin in a shadowbox, and initial letter from PB and a bulletin board I covered with a map of Ontario and painted red.

I made the curtains from some Ikea panels on my Grandma's old sewing machine.  You can also see the teeny closet, which we had dubbed the 'hobbit hole'.  It actually runs the length of the bedroom, perfect for hiding out and reading.

I made this Union Jack Pillow yesterday using some leftover fabric I had from the curtains and an old Pottery Barn shower curtain.  The light is from Barn Light Electric.

There are a few details I still want to complete.  Things around here are always a work in progress.  It's funny, the room turned out completely different from the inspiration board I originally made for the room.  But we couldn't be happier with the results.  I'd love to hear your feedback!

xo Meg


Just a note:  I'm going to do a little work on the photos in this post.  I'd really like for them to look a little more professional.  I struggle with photography - I don't have an expensive camera or know much about it!  If you have a suggestion for a photography resource, I'd really appreciate it.

The Old Fashioned Pfaff 130

   Yesterday, I sewed curtains for Elliott's room.  Well, really I did an Ikea Hack on a pair of Aina Curtain Panels.  I spruced 'em up with a little charcoal fabric and twill tape.  And they look good!  I sewed them on this baby:

   I'm not the greatest seamstress ever known to the blog world.  In fact, I'm really no good at sewing.  This is because my Mom is really, really good at sewing.  Whenever something needs to be done, she 'helps' me out.  What that usually means is that I brainstorm the idea, choose the fabric, start sewing, get frustrated within twenty minutes and let her finish it for me.  She's a perfectionist when it comes to sewing, which is a good thing, I guess.

Although my curtains are not perfect, I did manage to do a pretty good job.  Nice straight seams, everything pressed.  I surprised myself a little bit.

I can't wait to show you my sewing success.

xo Meg

Barn Board Scrub-Down

It's a beautiful sunny day here in the village, and I'm spending it scrubbing down the barn boards for Elliott's room.

   A couple friends of ours took down a barn and graciously allowed us to take some of the worn boards.  When we first got them, they were a warm grey that I loved.  But it turns out they are much more brown now that I've done the scrubbing.  I guess the grey patina was really mud.  Yes, I scrubbed them by hand.  I thought our power washer would take off too much of the patina, er... mud.

I began this job on my front steps, but I was concerned that my neighbours would think I was crazy.

So I moved the project to the backyard.

Gilmore was extremely helpful, especially with the hose.

  We are putting up this really cool treatment on his headboard wall.  I got the inspiration from this image from Jute Interior Design via houzz:

  Hopefully Jay gets some time to install the boards this week.  I can't wait for this room to come together.  I love the way things are turning out and I'm having so much fun working on it, now that the wallpaper stripping is done.

xo Meg

Decisions, Decisions

   So, I thought I had made a decision about the window coverings going in Elliott's room.  I had decided not to use the sailboat fabric there but to instead make a pillow out of it so it wasn't such a large focal point in the room.
   My idea was to look for a graphic fabric that I though would last longer in his room and give it the funky vibe I was looking for. Then I would make a roman shade out of the fabric.  Here are the fabrics I found online that I like.

    These fabrics are from Tonic Living.  I have ordered pillows from them before and they turned out perfectly.  They are a Canadian company that has great fabrics at reasonable prices, and I don't have to pay duty and extra shipping to get them across the border.

   However, none of these fabrics relate to the sailboat fabric.  Which means I probably won't be using it in the room.  I'm going to put it away and hope I can use it on some other project, some other time. Let's just say that my husband isn't so thrilled about spending money on this part of the project twice.

  Here's a reminder about the paint colours I have chosen for the room.

 I don't know why I always go about this so backwards!  I know you should choose fabrics and then pull your paint colours from them but somehow, I always make that mistake and then I'm stuck like this with walls already painted in a colour I love and no fabric.  Maybe it's because I have such a hard time finding fabrics I like here in Canada.

   Seems like I'm moving away from the original design plan for this room.  Some of that is because Elliott has chosen differently than I thought he would.  It's also because I'm having so much trouble making decisions about it.

Today I'm leaning towards the grey chevron fabric.  Any thoughts?

xoMeg

I Bought Something... But I'm not sure I like it.

Have you ever done that?  We were in this fabric store across the border in Port Huron and I was bound and determined to find a fabulous fabric for Elliott's window.  I was thinking a roman blind.  I was looking for something graphic, funky, mature and cool.   I got...

some sailboats:

I thought it would fit in well with his room.  We're putting up some weathered barn board on the headboard wall of the room and using a Hudson's Bay blanket on the bed (which, by the way, is much more expensive than I thought).  So I thought the map-type fabric (Robert Allen's Nautica) would kinda fit into the explorer/Canadiana feel I had going on.  I was going to band the outside with red grosgrain ribbon.    

But now that I have it home... I think I hate it.  

It feels too theme-y.  I was really thinking of fabrics like Gate by Dwell Studio:

Or this chevron at Spoonflower:

Or this one from Tonic Living:

Really, I just wanted Elliott to love the fabric and the one request he had for his room was that it be 'mature'.  Not little-kid-ish.  So, are sailboats too little-kid-ish?  I don't know.  The jury is still out.  I already bought the fabric and my Mom is willing to sew the shade.  Do I just make the blind and hope for the best???

On another note related to Elliott's room, I finished scraping the walls and primed out the crumbling plaster/drywall walls this morning.  I had to use an oil based primer so the skim coat Jay will be doing will adhere well.  The oil based primer says 'odourless' right on the can.  The fumes were so bad, they made me physically sick.  The door to the room is shut and the window is open.  We're heading to the pool for the rest of the afternoon.

xo Meg

Buildin' A Room for Elliott - Part 1

   We made some exciting progress this weekend on Elliott's room.  But we also encountered a few obstacles I wasn't expecting.  It appears that the previous homeowners of this house hung the wallpaper in Elliott's room on un-primed drywall.  As a result, it won't come off.  At least, not without removing the paper layer of the drywall too.

After Day 1:

The bed:

The walls:

    Not much progress on the wallpaper removal.  I tried wallpaper stripper, and I rented a steamer from the Home Depot.  Neither really worked.  The wallpaper has also been painted over so the only way to remove it is to peel the first layer of yellow paint ( an extremely tedious process) and then wet the straw-covered backing paper and scrape.  Good times.

    The weekend is over and we have a beautiful captain's bed, all ready to be filled, primed, painted and placed in the room.  However, the room is nowhere near ready for the bed.  I still have half a wall to strip.  Then the walls need to be primed with an oil based primer and skim coated to make a smooth finish.

After Day 2:

    We have tentatively decided on paint colours for the room.  The bed and desk will be painted BM Kendall Charcoal (HC-166), with the insides of the shelving on the headboard BM Rapture (CC-66).  The walls in the room will be BM Revere Pewter (HC-172).

If you're looking for me today, I'll be stripping the last wall in Elliott's room...

xo Meg